


Words to Live By

by BuffyRowan



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3917452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuffyRowan/pseuds/BuffyRowan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate marks aren't always easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words to Live By

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't help playing with this trope. The idea is that each person has on their body a mark like a tattoo, a word or phrase in their soulmate's handwriting. It might be a name, or a favorite quote, something that sums up the person. If one soulmate dies before the other, the surviving soulmate's mark changes to look like scars
> 
> Also, I deliberately don't identify which one of them I'm following. Because I want you to be as clueless as he is about how he'll know when he's met his mate.

When he was younger, his mark's placement had annoyed him. Even with a couple mirrors, he couldn't get a good look at it. He'd asked his mother once, when he was very young, how he would recognize his soulmate if he couldn't see his mark. She'd pointed out that his mate had a mark, too, and their mark might be in an easier to see spot.

As a teenager, he'd had a good friend take a polaroid of his mark. He'd admired the clean navy color, the well-formed cursive letters traced down his spine. The image of those words on his back had put steel in his spine. He stood ramrod straight, his shoulders back, meeting the world with level eyes. The recruiter he'd dealt with when he signed up had assumed he was from a military family based on his new posture.

Those words sometimes felt like the only thing keeping him upright, these days. Through the chaos, both world-wide and inside Kingsman itself, he held himself strong as ever. Through a standard post-mission physical where Morgana had crushed the one tiny thread of hope he'd had when he'd seen her look of deep sympathy after he'd pulled off his shirt and sweater. She hadn't had to say the words, he'd known that the words had lost their navy blue crispness. That it was now lines of silvery scars that spelled "Manners maketh man" down his spine.

When he'd stood in a county morgue in Kentucky, he hadn't looked at the ruin of the face, destroyed by Valentine's bullet. He'd focused on the slanted line of small, neat print in deep olive green on the left pectoral. He spoke the words that would make it an incontrovertible fact that Harry Hart was dead, but he couldn't help reaching out. Despite the cool, waxy feeling of the skin under his hand, his hand rested there, his palm covering--protecting uselessly--the tidy "Late as usual" that lay there.


End file.
